Walter Mosley Books in Order

Walter Ellis Mosley is a well-known American author known for crime fiction, interwoven with racial inequalities in the US. His greatest historical mysteries revolve around the detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator. 

Mosley lives in Los Angeles’ Watts neighborhood. He went to Victory Baptist Day School, a private school for African Americans. When he was twelve, his parents relocated from South Central to the more affluent side of Los Angeles. Mosley graduated in 1970 from Alexander Hamilton High School. 

He dropped out of Goddard College in Vermont. After that, he graduated from Johnson State College in political sciences. Mosley began writing at the age of 34. He has written more than forty novels and typically publishes two books per year. His works range from nonfiction political to afro-futurist science fiction and mystery and have been translated into 21 different languages. In 1992, Bill Clinton named Mosley one of his favorite writers. He is a trustee at Goddard College, has worked on the National Book Foundation’s board of directors, and is a part of the TransAfrica Forum’s board of directors.

Walter Mosley Books in order 

Crosstown to Oblivion

1. The Gift of Fire and On the Head of a Pin (2012)
2. Merge and Disciple (2012)
3. Stepping Stone and Love Machine (2013)

Easy Rawlins

1. Devil in a Blue Dress (1990)
2. A Red Death (1991)
3. White Butterfly (1992)
4. Black Betty (1994)
5. A Little Yellow Dog (1996)
6. Gone Fishin’ (1997)
7. Bad Boy Brawly Brown (2001)
8. Six Easy Pieces (2003)
9. Little Scarlet (2004)
10. Cinnamon Kiss (2005)
11. Blonde Faith (2007)
12. Little Green (2013)
13. Rose Gold (2014)
14. Charcoal Joe (2016)
15. Blood Grove (2021)

Fearless Jones

1. The Plot Thickens (1997)
2. Fearless Jones (2001)
3. Fear Itself (2003)
4. Fear of the Dark (2006)

Leonid McGill

1. The Long Fall (2009)
2. Known to Evil (2010)
3. Karma (2010)
4. When the Thrill Is Gone (2011)
5. All I Did Was Shoot My Man (2012)
6. And Sometimes I Wonder About You (2015)
7. Trouble Is What I Do (2020)

Socrates Fortlow

1. Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (1997)
2. Walkin’ the Dog (1999)
3. The Right Mistake (2008)

Standalone Novel

1. RL’s Dream (1995)
2. Blue Light (1998)
3. The Greatest (2000)
4. The Man in My Basement (2004)
5. 47 (2005)
6. The Wave (2005)
7. Diablerie (2006)
8. Fortunate Son (2006)
9. Killing Johnny Fry (2006)
10. The Tempest Tales (2008)
11. The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (2009)
12. Parishioner (2012)
13. Odyssey (2013)
14. Inside a Silver Box (2015)
15. The Further Tales of Tempest Landry (2015)
16. Down the River unto the Sea (2018)
17. John Woman (2018)

Short Stories/Novellas

1. Whispers in the Dark (2000)
2. Jack Strong (2014)
3. Debbie Doesn’t Do It Anymore (2014)
4. Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large (2016)

Short Story Collections

1. Futureland (2001)
2. The Awkward Black Man (2020)

Standalone Non-fiction

1. Workin’ on the Chain Gang (2000)
2. What Next (2003)
3. Life Out of Context (2005)
4. This Year You Write Your Novel (2007)
5. Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation (2011)
6. Folding the Red Into the Black (2016)
7. The Elements of Fiction Writing (2019)

Plays

1. The Fall of Heaven (2011)

Similar authors

• The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett explores the significance of a personal code of ethics in a world of inept authorities and an imperfect criminal justice system.
• Harlem Cycle by Chester Himes features Harlem’s toughest cops, Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones. They patrol the streets of Harlem, armed with their nickel-plated colts, and attempt to maintain law and order.

See also: Will Robie Books in Order.

Most recommended books

1. Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (4.17 Goodreads score)
2. Parishioner (4.11 Goodreads score)
3. The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray (4.11 Goodreads score)
4. And Sometimes I Wonder About You (Leonid McGill #5) (4.10 Goodreads score)
5. Six Easy Pieces (Easy Rawlins #8) (4.09 Goodreads score)

Awards

• Walter Mosey has won the Anisfield Wolf Award, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s Literary Award, and the O. Henry Award.
• His other awards include the Grammy Award for Best Album Notes, and the Sundance Institute’s “Risktaker Award”.  

Upcoming releases

 Walter Mosley’s most recent book, The Thing: The Next Big Thing, will be released on August 23rd, 2022.

Book summaries

The Gift of Fire and On the Head of a Pin (2012)

In ancient mythology, the Titan Prometheus was punished by the gods for bringing man the gift of fire—an event that set humankind on its course of knowledge. As punishment for making man as powerful as gods, Prometheus was bound to a rock; every day his immortal body was devoured by a giant eagle. But in Walter Mosley’s The Gift of Fire, those chains cease to be, and the great champion of man walks from that immortal prison into present-day South Central Los Angeles.

Merge and Disciple (2012)

Walter Mosley’s talent knows no bounds. Love Machine is one of six fragments in the Crosstown to Oblivion short novels in which Mosley entertainingly explores life’s cosmic questions. From life’s meaning to the nature of good and evil, these tales take us on speculative journeys beyond the reality we have come to know. In each tale someone in our world today is given insight into these long pondered mysteries. But how would the world really receive the answers? Raleigh Redman loved Nicci Charbon until she left him heartbroken. Then he hit the lotto for twenty-four million dollars, quit his minimum wage job, and set his sights on one goal: reading the entire collection of lectures in the Popular Educator Library, the only thing his father left behind after he died. As Raleigh is trudging through the eighth volume, he notices something in his apartment that at first seems ordinary but quickly reveals itself to be from a world very different from our own. This entity shows Raleigh joy beyond the comforts of twenty-four million dollars…and merges our world with those that live beyond.

Stepping Stone and Love Machine (2013)

Stepping Stone: Truman Pope has spent his whole life watching the world go by–and waiting for something he can’t quite put into words. A gentle, unassuming soul, he has worked in the mailroom of a large corporation for decades without making waves, until the day he spots a mysterious woman in yellow. A woman nobody else can see. Soon Truman’s quiet life begins to turn upside-down. An old lover surfaces from his past even as he finds his job in jeopardy. Strange visions haunt his days and nights until he begins to doubt his sanity. Is he losing his mind, or is he on the brink of a startling revelation that will change his life forever–and transform the nature of humanity?

Devil in a Blue Dress (1990)

Set in the late 1940s, in the African-American community of Watts, Los Angeles, Devil in a Blue Dress follows Easy Rawlins, a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend’s bar, wondering how he’ll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Monet, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.

A Red Death (1991)

It’s 1953 in Red-baiting, blacklisting Los Angeles—a moral tar pit ready to swallow Easy Rawlins. Easy is out of the hurting business and into the housing (and favor) business when a racist IRS agent nails him for tax evasion. Special Agent Darryl T. Craxton, FBI, offers to bail him out if he agrees to infiltrate the First American Baptist Church and spy on alleged communist organizer Chaim Wenzler. That’s when the murders begin…

White Butterfly (1992)

The police don’t show up on Easy’s doorstep until the third girl dies. It’s Los Angeles, 1956 and it takes more than a murdered black girl before the cops get interested. Now they need Easy. The LAPD need help to find the serial killer who’s going around murdering young, African American strippers. They only show up when the killer murders a white girl. But Easy turns them down. As he says: “I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto.” He’s married now, a father, and his detective days are over. When the white college coed dies, the cops make it clear that if Easy doesn’t help his best friend is headed for jail. So Easy is back, walking the midnight streets of Watts and the darker twisted avenues of a cunning killer’s mind, in the most explosive Easy Rawlins mystery yet.

Black Betty (1994)

Easy Rawlins is on the verge of losing everything—until he gets an offer from the FBI that he has no choice but to accept. For most Black Americans, the 1960s were times of hope. For former P.I. Easy Rawlins, Los Angeles’s mean streets were never meaner—or more deadly. Racial tensions are high—Black folks avoid even stepping foot in white neighborhoods. Despite the ongoing civil rights movement, racism still rules the streets, and police officers are no exception. So when a white man approaches Easy with a wad of cash to find a missing person, Easy would is tempted to simply throw the money back in his sleazy face. But he personally knows the woman the white man wants to find—the notorious Black Betty, an ebony siren whose talent for all things rich and male took her from Houston’s Fifth Ward to Beverly Hills. Short on money and pulled by the strong desire to see Black Betty again, he accepts the job. But why exactly this white man wants to find her isn’t clear. Easy’s questions aren’t being answered and he realizes the case might be more complex than he thought. Easy won’t stop at anything to find Black Betty. Even as the obstacles grow higher and the bodies begin to pile up.

A Little Yellow Dog (1996)

Easy finally believes he can lead a simple life and leave his haunted past behind him — until he meets a woman who changes everything. November 1963: Easy’s settled into a steady gig as a school custodian. It’s a quiet, simple existence—but a few moments of ecstasy with a sexy teacher will change all that. When the lady vanishes, Easy’s stuck with a couple of corpses, the cops on his back, and a little yellow dog who’s nobody’s best friend. With his not-so-simple past snapping at his heels, and with enemies old and new looking to get even, Easy must kiss his careful little life goodbye — and step closer to the edge.

Gone Fishin’ (1997)

In the beginning, there was Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins and Raymond “Mouse” Alexander, two young men setting out in life, hitting the road in a “borrowed” ’36 Ford headed for Pariah, Texas. The volatile Mouse wants to retrieve money from his stepfather so he can marry his Etta Mae. But on their steamy bayou excursion, Mouse will choose murder as a way out, while Easy’s past liaison with Etta Mae floats precariously in his memory. Easy and Mouse are coming of age and everything they ever knew about friendship and about themselves is coming apart at the seams. As Mosley takes Easy and Mouse on this journey to manhood, he weaves together a remarkable cast of friends and foes, who are introduced here for the first time and will later appear in Easy Rawlins mysteries. This is the chance to unravel the mystery behind the souls of every character.

Bad Boy Brawly Brown (2001)

Young Brawly Brown has traded in his family for The Clan of the First Men, a group rejecting white leadership and laws. Brown’s mom asks Easy to make sure her baby’s okay, and Easy promises to find him. On his first day on the case, Easy comes face-to-face with a corpse, and before he knows it he is a murder suspect and in the middle of a police raid. Brawly Brown is clearly the kind of trouble most folks try to avoid. It takes everything Easy has just to stay alive as he explores a world filled with betrayals and predators like he never imagined.

Six Easy Pieces (2003)

The beloved Ezekiel Rawlins now has a steady job as senior head custodian of Sojourner Truth High School, a nice house with a garden, a loving woman, and children. He counts the blessings of leading a law-abiding life but is nowhere near happy. Easy mourns the loss of his best friend, Mouse. Though he tries to leave the street life behind, he still finds himself trading favors and investigating cases of arson, murder, and missing people. People who can’t depend on the law to solve their problems, seek out Easy. A bomb is set in the high school where Easy works. A man’s daughter runs off with his employee. A beautiful woman turns up dead and the man who loved her is wrongly accused. Easy is the man people turn to in search of justice and retribution. He even becomes a party to a killing that the police might call murder.

Little Scarlet (2004)

Just after devastating riots tear through Los Angeles in 1965, when anger is high and fear still smolders everywhere, the police turn up at Easy Rawlins’ doorstep. He expects the worst, as usual. But they’ve come to ask for his help. A man was wrenched from his car by a mob at the riots’ peak and escaped into a nearby apartment building. Soon afterward, a redheaded woman known as Little Scarlet was found dead in that building, and the fleeing man is the obvious suspect. But the man has vanished. The police fear that their presence in certain neighborhoods could spark a new inferno, so they ask Easy Rawlins to see what he can discover. The vanished man is the key, but he is only the beginning. Easy enlists the help of his longtime friend Mouse to break through the shroud. And what Easy finds is a killer whose rage, like that which burned in the city for weeks, is intrinsically woven around deep-set passions, feelings echoed within Easy himself.

Cinnamon Kiss (2005)

It is the Summer of Love and Easy Rawlins is contemplating robbing an armored car. It’s farther outside the law than Easy has ever traveled, but his daughter, Feather, needs a medical treatment that costs far more than Easy can earn or borrow in time. And his friend Mouse tells him it’s a cinch. Then another friend, Saul Lynx, offers a job that might solve Easy’s problem without jail time. He has to track the disappearance of an eccentric, prominent attorney. His assistant of sorts, the beautiful “Cinnamon” Cargill, is gone as well. Easy can tell there is much more than he is being told: Robert Lee, his new employer, is as suspect as the man who disappeared. But his need overcomes all concerns, and he plunges into unfamiliar territory, from the newfound hippie enclaves to a vicious plot that stretches back to the battlefields of Europe.

Blonde Faith (2007)

Easy Rawlins, L.A.’s most reluctant detective, comes home one day to find Easter, the daughter of his friend Chrismas Black, left on his doorstep. Easy knows that this could only mean that the ex-marine Black is probably dead, or will be soon. Easter’s appearance is only the beginning, as Easy is immersed in a sea of problems. The love of his life is marrying another man and his friend Mouse is wanted for the murder of a father of twelve. As he’s searching for a clue to Christmas Black’s whereabouts, two suspicious MPs hire him to find his friend Black on behalf of the U.S. Army. Easy’s investigation brings him to Faith Laneer, a blonde woman with a dark past. As Easy begins to put the pieces together, he realizes that Black’s disappearance has its roots in Vietnam and that Faith might be in a world of danger.

Little Green (2013)

When Walter Mosley burst onto the literary scene in 1990 with his first Easy Rawlins mystery, Devil in a Blue Dress—a combustible mixture of Raymond Chandler and Richard Wright—he captured the attention of hundreds of thousands of readers (including future President Bill Clinton). Eleven books later, Easy Rawlins is one of the few private eyes in contemporary crime fiction who can be called iconic and immortal. In the incendiary and fast-paced Little Green, he returns from the brink of death to investigate the dark side of L.A.’s 1960s hippie haven, the Sunset Strip. We last saw Easy in 2007’s Blonde Faith, fighting for his life after his car plunges over a cliff. True to form, the tough WWII veteran survives, and soon his murderous sidekick Mouse has him back cruising the mean streets of L.A., in all their psychedelic 1967 glory, to look for a young black man, Evander “Little Green” Noon, who disappeared during an acid trip. Fueled by an elixir called Gator’s Blood, brewed by the conjured woman Mama Jo, Easy experiences a physical, spiritual, and emotional resurrection, but peace and love soon give way to murder and mayhem. Written with Mosley’s signature grit and panache, this engrossing and atmospheric mystery is not only a trip back in time, it is also a tough-minded exploration of good and evil, and of the power of guilt and redemption. Once again, Easy asserts his reign over the City of (Fallen) Angels.

Rose Gold (2014)

Rosemary Goldsmith, the daughter of a weapons manufacturer, has been kidnapped by a black revolutionary cell called Scorched Earth. Their leader, Uhuru Nolicé, is holding her for ransom and if he doesn’t receive the money, weapons, and apology he demands, “Rose Gold” will die—horribly and publicly. So the authorities turn to Easy Rawlins, the one man who can cross the necessary lines to resolve this dangerous standoff and find Rose Gold before it’s too late.

Charcoal Joe (2016)

Picking up where his last adventures in Rose Gold left off in L.A. in the late 1960s, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins finds his life in transition. He’s ready—finally—to propose to his girlfriend, Bonnie Shay, and start a life together. And he’s taken the money he got from the Rose Gold case and, together with two partners, Saul Lynx and Tinsford “Whisper” Natly, has started a new detective agency. But, inevitably, a case gets in the way: Easy’s friend Mouse introduces him to Rufus Tyler, a very old man everyone calls Charcoal Joe. Joe’s friend’s son, Seymour (young, bright, top of his class in physics at Stanford), has been arrested and charged with the murder of a white man from Redondo Beach. Joe tells Easy he will pay and pay well to see this young man exonerated, but seeing as how Seymour literally was found standing over the man’s dead body at his cabin home and considering the racially charged motives seemingly behind the murder, that might prove to be a tall order. Between his new company, a heart that should be broken but is not a whole raft of new bad guys on his tail, and a bad odor that surrounds Charcoal Joe, Easy has his hands full, his horizons askew, and his life in shambles around his feet.

Blood Grove (2021)

It is 1969, and flames can be seen on the horizon, protest wafts like smoke through the thick air, and Easy Rawlins, the Black private detective whose small agency finally has its own office, gets a visit from a white Vietnam veteran. The young man comes to Easy with a story that makes little sense. He and his lover, a beautiful young woman, were attacked in a citrus grove on the city’s outskirts. He may have killed a man, and the woman and his dog are now missing. Inclined to turn down what sounds like nothing but trouble, Easy takes the case when he realizes how damaged the young vet is from his war experiences—the bond between veterans superseding all other considerations. The veteran is not Easy’s only unlooked-for trouble. Easy’s adopted daughter Feather’s white uncle shows up uninvited, raising questions and unsettling the life Easy has long forged for the now-young woman. When Feather sees a family reunion, Easy suspects something else, something that will break his heart. Blood Grove is a crackling, moody, and thrilling race through a California of hippies and tycoons, radicals and sociopaths, cops, and grifters, both men and women. Easy will need the help of his friends—from the genius Jackson Blue to the dangerous Mouse Alexander, Fearless Jones, and Christmas Black—to make sense of a case that reveals the darkest impulses humans harbor. Blood Grove is a novel of vast scope and intimate insight, and a soulful call for justice by any means necessary.

The Plot Thickens (1997)

He’s fast. She’s furious. They’re in for the ride of their lives. When sexy ​NASCAR racer Beau Lansing tracks down high society debutante Celeste Bennett, it’s a matter of life or death. Stunned at the secret Beau reveals, Celeste is forced to make a life-altering decision. But with her love life on the skids and her family living in a tailspin, escaping incognito into Beau’s world is just what she needs—especially if she can get answers about her past. Beau needs Celeste to save a man’s life—he never expected a high-octane attraction that could wreck his well-protected heart. And when Celeste’s life is threatened by someone who clearly knows her real identity, Beau has to risk everything—including his own life—to save her. With menacing forces in the driver’s seat and time ticking too fast, the two must win the biggest race of all…the race for their lives and their love.

Fearless Jones (2001)

Mosley returns to mysteries at last with his most engaging hero since Easy Rawlins. When Paris Minton meets a beautiful new woman, before he knows it he has been beaten up, slept with, shot at, robbed, and his bookstore burned to the ground. He’s in so much trouble he has no choice but to get his friend, Fearless Jones, out of jail to help him.

Fear Itself (2003)

Paris Minton doesn’t want any trouble. He minds his used bookstore and his own business. But in 1950s Los Angeles, sometimes trouble finds him, no matter how hard he tries to avoid it. When the nephew of the wealthiest woman in L.A. is missing and wanted for murder, she has to get involved-no matter if she can’t stand him. What will her church think? She hires Jefferson T. Hill, a former sheriff of Dawson, Texas, and a tough customer, to track him down and prove his innocence. When Hill goes missing too, she tricks his friend Fearless Jones and Paris Minton into picking up the case. Paris steps inside the world of the black bourgeoisie, and it turns out to be filled with deceit and corruption. It takes everything he has just to stay alive through a case filled with twists and turns and dead ends like he never imagined. Written with the voice and vision that have made Walter Mosley one of the most entertaining writers in America, Fear Itself marks the return of a master at the top of his form.

Fear of the Dark (2006)

“I’m in trouble, Paris.” Paris Minton has heard these words before. They mean only one thing: that his neck is on the line too. So when they are uttered by his lowlife cousin Ulysses S. Grant, Paris keeps the door firmly closed. With a family like Ulysses’ — useless to everyone except his mother — who needs enemies? But trouble always finds an open window, and when “Useless” Ulysses’ mother, Three Hearts, shows up from Louisiana to look for her son, Paris has no choice but to track down his wayward cousin. Finding a con artist like Useless is easier said than done. But with the aid of his ear-to-the-ground friend Fearless Jones, Paris gets a hint that Useless may have expanded his range of enterprise to include blackmail. Now he has disappeared, and Paris’s mission is to discover whether he is hiding from his vengeful victims — or already dead. Traversing the complicated landscape of 1950s Los Angeles, where a wrong look can get a black man killed, Paris and Fearless find desperate women, secret lives, and more than one dead body along the way.

The Long Fall (2009)

Leonid McGill is an ex-boxer and a hard drinker looking to clean up his act. He’s an old-school P.I. working a New York City that’s gotten a little too fancy all around him. But it’s still full of dirty secrets, and as McGill unearths them, his commitment to the straight and narrow is going to be tested to the limit…

Known to Evil (2010)

When New York private eye Leonid McGill is hired to check up on a vulnerable young woman, all he discovers is a bloody crime scene and the woman gone missing. His client doesn’t want her found. The reason will put everything McGill cherishes in harm’s way: his family, his friends, and his very soul.

Karma (2010)

He was a private investigator who had “decided to go from crooked to slightly bent,” turning down the shady but lucrative work that New York’s thugs and mobsters had long brought to his door. In Karma, Walter Mosley tells us the story of the moment McGill decided to change his ways when a seemingly classic femme fatale forced him to confront the reality of his life of corruption and betrayal. It was the culmination of a dark and tragic case that reached back through McGill’s entire career, plumbing the full, complex history of the soul-scarred figure now hailed as “a poignantly real character . . . [and] a more than worthy successor to Philip Marlowe.”

When the Thrill Is Gone (2011)

Leonid McGill can’t say no to the beautiful woman who walks into his office with a stack of cash and a story. She’s married to a rich art collector. Now she fears for her life. Leonid knows better than to believe her, but he can’t afford to turn her away, even if he knows this woman’s tale will bring him straight to death’s door.

All I Did Was Shoot My Man (2012)

Zella Grisham never denied shooting her boyfriend. That’s not why she did eight years of a hard time on a sixteen-year sentence. It’s that the shooting inadvertently led to charges of grand theft. Talk about bad luck. Leonid McGill has reasons to believe she’s innocent. But reopening the case is only serving to unsettle McGill’s private life even further—and expose a family secret that’s like a kick to the gut. As the case unfolds, as the truth of what happened eight years ago becomes more damning and more complex than anyone dreamed, McGill and Zella realize that everyone is guilty of something and that sometimes the sins of the past can be too damaging to ever forget. Or ever forgive.

And Sometimes I Wonder About You (2015)

In the fifth Leonid McGill novel, Leonid finds himself in an unusual pickle of trying to balance his cases with his chaotic personal life. Leonid’s father is still out there somewhere, and his wife is in an uptown sanitarium trying to recover from the deep depression that led to her attempted suicide in the previous novel. His wife’s condition has put a damper on his affair with Aura Ullman, his girlfriend. And his son, Twill, has been spending a lot of time out of the office with his own case, helping a young thief named Fortune and his girlfriend, Liza. Meanwhile, Leonid is approached by an unemployed office manager named Hiram Stent to track down the whereabouts of his cousin, Celia, who is about to inherit millions of dollars from her father’s side of the family. Leonid declines the case, but after his office is broken into and Hiram is found dead, he gets reeled into the underbelly of Celia’s wealthy old-money family. It’s up to Leonid to save who he can and incriminate the guilty; all while helping his son finish his own investigation; locating his own father; reconciling (whatever that means) with his wife and girlfriend; and attending the wedding of Gordo, his oldest friend.

Trouble Is What I Do (2020)

Leonid McGill spent a lifetime building up his reputation in the New York investigative scene. His seemingly infallible instinct and inside knowledge of the crime world make him the ideal man to help when Phillip Worry comes knocking. Phillip “Catfish” Worry is a 92-year-old Mississippi bluesman who needs Leonid’s help with a simple task: deliver a letter revealing the black lineage of a wealthy heiress and her corrupt father. Unsurprisingly, the opportunity to do a simple favor while shocking the prevailing elite is too much for Leonid to resist. But when a famed and feared assassin puts a hit on Catfish, Leonid has no choice but to confront the ghost of his own felonious past. Working to protect his client and his own family, Leonid must reach the heiress on the eve of her wedding before her powerful father kills those who hold their family’s secret. Joined by a team of young and tough aspiring investigators, Leonid must gain the trust of wary socialites, outsmart vengeful thugs, and, above all, serve the truth — no matter the cost.

Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (1997)

“I either committed a crime or had a crime done to me every day I was in jail. Once you go to prison you belong there.” Socrates Fortlow has done his time: twenty-seven years for murder and rape, acts forged by his huge, rock-breaking hands. Now, he has come home to a new kind of prison: two battered rooms in an abandoned building in Watts. Working for the Bounty supermarket, and moving perilously close to invisibility, it is Socrates who throws a lifeline to a drowning man: young Darryl, whose shaky path is already bloodstained and fearsome. In a place of violence and hopelessness, Socrates offers up his own battle-scarred wisdom that can turn the world around.

Walkin’ the Dog (1999)

Socrates Fortlow, an ex-convict forced to define his own morality in a lawless world, confronts wrongs that most people would rather ignore and comes face-to-face with the most dangerous emotion: hope. It has been nine years since his release from prison, and he still makes his home in a two-room shack in a Watts alley. But he has a girlfriend now, a steady job, and he is even caring for a pet, the two-legged dog he calls Killer. These responsibilities make finding the right path even harder – especially when the police make Socrates their first suspect in every crime within six blocks.–book jacket “In each chapter of Walkin’ the Dog, Socrates challenges a different conundrum of modern life. In “Blue Lightning, ” he is offered a better-paying job but has to consider whether the extra pay is worth the freedom he would have to give up. In “Promise, ” he keeps a vow made long ago to a dying friend, and learns that a promise to one person can mean damage to another. In “Mookie Kid, ” he gets a telephone and, learns that the price of being able to reach others is that others can contact him – whether he wants to be reached or not.”–book jacket.

The Right Mistake (2008)

Living in south central L.A., Socrates Fortlow is a sixty-year-old ex-convict still strong enough to kill men with his bare hands. Filled with profound guilt about his own crimes and disheartened by the chaos of the streets, Socrates calls together local people of all races and social stations and begins to conduct a Thinkers’ Club, where all can discuss life’s unanswerable questions. Infiltrated by undercover cops and threatened by strain from within, the Thinkers’ Club doesn’t have it easy. But simply by debating racial authenticity, street justice, and the possibility of mutual understanding, Socrates and his unlikely crew actually begin to make a difference. The Right Mistake is Walter Mosley at his most incisive. At once an affectionate and coruscating portrait of ghetto life, it abides in the possibility of personal redemption and even, with great struggle, social change.

RL’s Dream (1995)

Soupspoon Wise is dying on the unforgiving streets of New York City, years and worlds away from the Mississippi delta, where he once jammed with blues legend Robert “RL” Johnson. It was an experience that burned indelibly into Soupspoon’s soul—never mind that they said RL’s gift came from the Devil himself. Now it’s Soupspoon’s turn to strike a deal with a stranger. An alcoholic angel of mercy, Kiki Waters isn’t much better off than Soupspoon, but she too is a child of the South and knows its pull. And she is determined to let Soupspoon ride out the final notes of his haunting blues dream, to pour out the remarkable tale of what he’s seen, where he’s been—and where he’s going.

Blue Light (1998)

San Francisco in the mid-1960s is already a crazy place when a cosmic blue light randomly strikes people in its path, quickening their DNA and enhancing their strengths. Under blue light nothing remains the same.

The Greatest (2000)

It was never proven that Fera Jones was the product of SepFem-G, the outlawed genetics program that came out of the feminist studies program at Smith College. But one thing was absolutely certain: When it came to boxing, Fera Jones floated like a butterfly and stung like a B-1 Bomber. . . but would her incomparable skills in the ring withstand an onslaught from the outside world? Her father and trainer, Leon, is addicted to Pulse-a gene drug that slowly kills its users. Her boyfriend, Pell Lightner, is fresh from the streets. Lana Lordess, governor of Massachusetts and head of the FemLeague, wants Fera’s political endorsement. The Randac Corporation will pay her a billion dollars to plug an amusement park on the Moon. Meanwhile, Travis Zeletski, the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world, is waiting for Fera to step into the ring and meet him in the ultimate battle of the sexes: a twelve-round thrilla that will leave only one fighter standing. . .

The Man in My Basement (2004)

The man at Charles Blakey’s door has a proposition almost too strange for words. The stranger offers him $50,000 in cash to spend the summer in Charles’s basement, and Charles cannot even begin to guess why. The beautiful house has been in the Blakey family for generations, but Charles has just lost his job and is behind on his mortgage payments. The money would be welcome. But Charles Blakey is black and Anniston Bennet is white, and it is clear that the stranger wants more than a basement view. There is something deeper and darker about his request, and Charles does not need any more trouble. But financial necessity leaves him no choice. Once Anniston Bennet is installed in his basement, Charles is cast into a role he never dreamed of. Anniston has some very particular requests for his landlord, and try as he might, Charles cannot avoid being lured into Bennet’s strange world. At first, he resists, but soon he is tempted — tempted to understand a set of codes that has always eluded him, tempted by the opportunity to understand the secret ways of white folks. Charles’s summer with a man in his basement turns into an exploration of inconceivable worlds of power and manipulation, and unimagined realms of humanity. Walter Mosley pierces long-hidden veins of justice and morality with startling insight into the deepest mysteries of human nature.

47 (2005)

47 is a young slave boy living under the watchful eye of a brutal slave master. His life seems doomed until he meets a mysterious runaway slave, Tall John. 47 finds himself swept up in a struggle for his own liberation.

The Wave (2005)

Errol is awakened by a strange prank caller claiming to be his father, who has been dead for several years. Curious, and not a little unnerved, Errol sneaks into the graveyard where his father is buried. What he finds will change his life forever.

Diablerie (2006)

In this icy noir from a master of American fiction, the darkest secrets are the ones we keep hidden from ourselves. Ben Dibbuk has a good job, an accomplished wife, a bright college-age daughter, and a patient young mistress. Even as he goes through the motions of everyday life, however, inside he feels nothing. The explanation for this emotional void lies in the years he spent as a blacked-out drunk before pulling his life together – years in which he knows he committed acts he doesn’t remember. Then a woman from his past turns up at a gala for his wife’s new gig at a magazine called Diablerie and makes it clear that she remembers something he doesn’t. Their encounter sets wheels in motion that will propel Dibbuk toward new knowledge and perhaps the chance to feel again. With the same erotic force as Killing Johnny Fry, but grounded in a far darker vision of human nature, Diablerie is a transfixing new novel from one of our most powerful writers.

Fortunate Son (2006)

In spite of remarkable differences, Eric and Tommy are as close as brothers. Eric, a Nordic Adonis, is graced by a seemingly endless supply of good fortune. Tommy is a lame black boy, cursed with health problems, yet he remains optimistic and strong. After tragedy rips their makeshift family apart, the lives of these boys diverge astonishingly: Eric, the golden youth, is given everything but trusts nothing; Tommy, motherless and impoverished, has nothing, but feels lucky every day of his life. In a riveting story of modern-day resilience and redemption, the two confront separate challenges, and when circumstances reunite them years later, they draw on their extraordinary natures to confront a common enemy and, ultimately, save their lives.

Killing Johnny Fry (2006)

When Cordell Carmel catches his longtime girlfriend with another man, the act that he witnesses seems to dissolve all the boundaries he knows. He wants revenge, but also something more. Killing Johnny Fry is the story of Cordell’s dark, funny, soulful, and outrageously explicit sexual odyssey in search of a new way of life.

The Tempest Tales (2008)

Mistaken for another man, wily Tempest is “accidentally” shot by police. Sent to receive the judgment of heaven he discovers his sins, according to St. Peter, condemn him to hell. Tempest takes exception to the saint’s definition of sin; he refuses to go to hell and explains that he, a poor Black man living in Harlem, did what he did for family, friends, and love. St. Peter, whose judgment has never been challenged, understands the secret of damnation and heaven’s celestial authority–mortals must willingly accept their sins. Should Tempest continue his refusal, heaven will collapse, thereby allowing hell and its keeper, the fallen angel Satan, to reign supreme. The only solution: send this recalcitrant mortal back to earth with an accounting angel, whose all-important mission is to persuade Tempest to accept his sins and St. Peter’s judgment. Using the street smarts that served him so well in his previous life, Mosley’s hero takes the accounting angel on a tour of mortal life that tests not only heaven’s notions but the poor angel’s own resolve.In this episodic battle with heaven and hell for his ultimate destiny, Tempest also takes the reader on a philosophic and humorous journey where free will is pitted against class and race–and the music of heaven is pitted against the blues.

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (2009)

Ptolemy Grey is ninety-one years old and has been all but forgotten by his family, his friends, and even himself-as he sinks into lonely dementia. His grand-nephew, Ptolemy’s only connection to the outside world, was recently killed in a drive-by shooting, and Ptolemy is too suspicious of anyone else to allow them into his life. until he meets Robyn, his niece’s seventeen-year-old lodger and the only one willing to take care of an old man at his grandnephew’s funeral. But Robyn will not tolerate Ptolemy’s hermitlike existence. She challenges him to interact more with the world around him, and he grasps more firmly onto his disappearing consciousness. However, this new activity pushes Ptolemy into the fold of a doctor touting an experimental drug that guarantees Ptolemy won’t live to see age ninety- two but that he’ll spend his last days in feverish vigor and clarity. With his mind clear, Ptolemy finds-in his own past, in his own apartment, and in the circumstances surrounding his grand-nephew’s death-is shocking enough to spur an old man to action, and to ensure a legacy that no one will forget. In The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Mosley captures the compromised state of his protagonist’s mind with profound sensitivity and insight and creates an unforgettable pair of characters at the center of a novel that is sure to become a true contemporary classic.

Parishioner (2012)

In a small town situated between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, a simple church of white stone sits atop a hill on the coast. This nameless house of worship is a sanctuary for the worst kinds of sinners: the congregation and even the clergy have broken all ten Commandments and more. Now they have gathered to seek forgiveness. Xavier Rule—Ecks to his friends—didn’t come to California in search of salvation but, thanks to the grace of this church, he has begun to learn to forgive himself and others for past misdeeds. One day a woman arrives to seek absolution for the guilt she has carried for years over her role in a scheme to kidnap three children and sell them on the black market. As part of atoning for his past life on the wrong side of the law, Ecks is assigned to find out what happened to the abducted children. As he follows the thin trail of the twenty-three-year-old crime, he must struggle against his old, lethal instincts—and learn when to give in to them.

Odyssey (2013)

Sovereign James wakes up one morning to discover that he’s gone blind. Sovereign’s doctors can’t find anything wrong with him, nor does he remember any physical or psychological trauma. Unless his sight returns, Sovereign has reached the end of his 25-year career in human resources. A couple of weeks later he is violently mugged on the street. His sight briefly, miraculously returns during the attack: for a few seconds, he can see as well as hear a young female bystander’s cries of distress. Now he must grapple with two questions: What caused him to lose his vision—and, perhaps more troubling, why does violence restore it? As Sovereign searches for the woman he glimpsed, he will come to question everything he valued about his former life.

Inside a Silver Box (2015)

In Inside a Silver Box, two people brought together by a horrific act are united in a common cause by the powers of the Silver Box. The two join to protect humanity from destruction by an alien race, the Laz, hell-bent on regaining control over the Silver Box, the most destructive and powerful tool in the universe. The Silver Box will stop at nothing to prevent its former master from returning to being, even if it means finishing the earth itself.

The Further Tales of Tempest Landry (2015)

When Tempest Landry was accidentally shot and killed by the police, St. Peter ruled that Tempest’s sins condemned him to hell. But Tempest refused to accept damnation, and even heaven can’t overrule free will. Unless he goes willingly, the order of heaven and hell will collapse and Satan will reign over the chaos. The celestial authority sends an accounting angel to earth, to convince Tempest that he should sacrifice himself for the good of the world, and casts Tempest’s soul into the body of a man who has been convicted of serious crimes. While Tempest serves out another man’s prison sentence, the angel Joshua is living among mankind. He has been stripped of his celestial powers, yet is still tasked with persuading Tempest to make the right choice. As the angel sees the many injustices his friend suffers, he begins to question the morality and rightness of his position.

Down the River unto the Sea (2018)

Joe King Oliver was one of the NYPD’s finest investigators until he was framed for sexual assault by unknown enemies within the force. A decade has passed since his release from Rikers, and he now runs a private detective agency with the help of his teenage daughter. Physically and emotionally broken by the brutality he suffered while behind bars, King leads a solitary life, his work and his daughter the only lights. When he receives a letter from his accuser confessing that she was paid to frame him years ago, King decides to find out who wanted him gone and why. On a quest for justice he was denied, King agrees to help a radical black journalist accused of killing two on-duty police officers. Their cases intertwine across the years and expose a pattern of corruption and brutality wielded against the black men, women, and children whose lives the law destroyed. All the while, two lives hang in the balance: King’s client’s and his own.

John Woman (2018)

At twelve years old, Cornelius Jones, the son of an Italian-American woman and a black man from Mississippi, secretly takes over his father’s job at a silent film theater in New York’s East Village—until the innocent scheme goes tragically wrong. Years later, his dying father imparts this piece of wisdom to Cornelius: The person who controls the narrative of history controls their own fate. After his father dies and his mother disappears, Cornelius sets about reinventing himself—becoming Professor John Woman, a man who will spread his father’s teachings through the classrooms of an unorthodox southwestern university and beyond. But there are other individuals who are attempting to influence the narrative of John Woman, and who might know something about the facts of his hidden past. Engaging with some of the most provocative ideas of recent intellectual history, John Woman is a compulsively readable, deliciously unexpected novel about the way we tell stories, and whether the stories we tell have the power to change the world

Whispers in the Dark (2000)

Ptolemy Bent–“Popo”–is different. At an age when most babies are cooing “Mama, ” Popo was speaking in complete sentences. He was reading college textbooks when he was still too young for nursery school. Popo may just be the smartest human being on Earth. And he spends all his time listening to the radio . . . to white noise that comes drifting down from the sky like stardust. Chill Bent is a two-time loser with a hair-trigger temper. After the death of Popo’s mother, the ex-con assumes responsibility for his nephew, vowing to protect the boy from a government eager to strip away his African-American heritage and exploit his genius like a natural resource. Together, Popo and Chill are about to embark on an extraordinary journey into the farthest reaches of the mind and the soul . . . a journey you will never forget.

Jack Strong (2014)

In a Las Vegas hotel room, a man awakes to confront his destinyDreaming, Jack hears voices: a frightened child in a hospital, a woman cheating on her husband, a death-row inmate. When he wakes, the voices recede, but they do not vanish. He is in a luxurious hotel room on the Vegas Strip, and his body is covered in scars. Jack Strong is a patchwork man, his flesh melded together from dozens of men and women, and his mind is the same way. Countless lifetimes are contained within him: people whose time was cut short, and who see their place in Jack as a chance to make things right. On behalf of one of them, Jack reignites a feud with corrupt casino bosses. Drawing on the skills of another, he beats the life out of two bodyguards. Jack fights for control as he lurches from impulse to impulse, certain that somewhere within him exists a soul. The answers may lie with whoever is tailing him in a sleek black car—if Jack can somehow confront him.

Debbie Doesn’t Do It Anymore (2014)

Millions of men (and no doubt many women) have watched famed black porn queen Debbie Dare—she of the blond wig and blue contacts-“do it” on television and computer screens every which way with every combination of partners the mind of man can imagine. But one day an unexpected and thunderous on-set orgasm catches Debbie unawares, and when she returns to the mansion she shares with her husband, insatiable former porn star and “film producer” Theon Pinkney, she discovers that he’s died in a case of hot tub electrocution, “auditioning” an aspiring “starlet.” Burdened with massive debts that her husband incurred, and which various L.A. heavies want to collect on, Debbie must reckon with a life spent in the peculiar subculture of the pornography industry and her estrangement from her family and the child she had to give up. She’s done with porn, but her options for what might come next include the possibility of suicide. Debbie . . . is a portrait of a ransacked but resilient soul in search of salvation and a cure for grief.

Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large (2016)

Young journalism student Felix Orlean is in over his head. Against his better judgment, he is temporarily under the employ of the mad yet charismatic anarchist detective Archibald Lawless, a witness to a murder, and under investigation for the theft of millions of dollars in red diamonds. Caught in an impossible predicament, Orlean plunges into an underworld populated by shady denizens. With Lawless, he unravels a big-money conspiracy involving cold-blooded assassination, hide-away real estate in Manhattan, a network of international criminals, a lethal siren named Lana Drexel, and the richest man in Canada. A brilliant, absurdist novella and a biting work of political commentary, Walter Mosley’s “Archibald Lawless” is a masterpiece of contemporary American crime fiction.

Futureland (2001)

Life in America a generation from now isn’t much different from today: The drugs are better, and the daily grind is worse. The gap between the rich and the poor has widened to a chasm. You can store the world’s legal knowledge on a chip in your little finger, while the Supreme Court has decreed that constitutional rights don’t apply to any individual who challenges the system. Justice is swiftly delivered by automated courts, so the prison industry is booming. And while the media declare racism is dead, word on the street is that even in a colorless society, it’s a crime to be black. But the world still turns, and folks still have to get by with the hands they’re dealt, folks such as: Ptolemy “Popo” Bent: This gentle backwoods child has a genius I.Q.- and a soul so pure that officials want him locked up forever. Folio Johnson: A hardboiled, cyber-augmented private eye who can see beneath the dark poetry of the metropolis, he will need an even greater edge than that to find out who’s systematically murdering rich, young Nazis.Fera Jones: She’s the boxing Queen of the Ring who must still fight all comers to save her dad, preserve her identity, and protect the fans who believe in her. Dr. Ivan Kismet: The world’s richest man, Macrocode’s CEO is a tycoon, tyrant, and messiah who is evidently more powerful than God. So it’s too bad for everyone that Dr. Kismet is utterly insane. Walter Mosley brings to life the celebs, working stiffs, leaders, victims, technocrats, crooks, oppressors, and revolutionaries who inhabit a glorious all-American nightmare that’s just around the corner. Welcome to Futureland.

The Awkward Black Man (2020)

With his extraordinary fiction and gripping television writing, Walter Mosley has proven himself a master of narrative tension. The Awkward Black Man collects seventeen of Mosley’s most accomplished short stories to showcase the full range of his remarkable talent. Touching, contemplative, and always surprising, these stories introduce an array of imperfect characters—awkward, self-defeating, elf-involved, or just plain odd. In The Awkward Black Man, Mosley overturns the stereotypes that corral black male characters and paints subtle, powerful portraits of unique individuals. In “The Good News Is,” a man’s insecurity about his weight gives way to illness and loneliness so intense that he’d do anything for a little human comfort. “Pet Fly,” previously published in the New Yorker, follows a man working as a mailroom clerk—a solitary job for which he is overqualified—and the unforeseen repercussions he endures when he attempts to forge a new connection. And “Almost Alyce” chronicles failed loves, family loss, alcoholism, and a Zen approach to the art of begging that proves surprisingly effective.

Workin’ on the Chain Gang (2000)

Slavery was outlawed in this country more than a century ago, but Americans still wear chains. Each one of us, black and white alike, is shackled by a system that values money over humanity, power over truth, and conformity over creativity. Race has undeniably made the problem worse, but race is not the root of the problem. Indeed, as a black novelist and activist Walter Mosley brilliantly argues in this impassioned call to arms, though the chains might be more recognizable in the lives of blacks, the same chains restrain us all. Only when we understand this truth can we begin—black and white together—to cast off the shackles. Far from being a cause for celebration, the millennium, Mosley argues fiercely, should be the occasion for a frank reckoning with the real state of our society. We have the power to end starvation, but one-third of our children live in poverty. Our politics have degenerated into a multimillion-dollar game show ruled by two indistinguishable monopolies. We drug ourselves with television, sports, sex, apathy, and obsession with celebrity, while our cities rot and violence erupts in our schools. Why is this happening? Because we have allowed ourselves to be made into property, owned and controlled by an economic system in which “value” means only profit. “Some of us are cogs in the economic machine,” writes Mosley, “others are ghosts, but it is the machine, not race or gender or even nationality, that drives us.”But each one of us can work toward breaking off these chains. First by recognizing the truth of our history—a history that is crucially informed by the black experience. Second by beginning to free ourselves from the noise, the often shallow, diverting entertainment, and an all-consuming economic system. The nation and its potentials are ours to command, but only if we work, individually and collectively, to cast off the chains of yesterday’s politics and seize the freedoms that the future holds. Angry, original, and fearlessly honest, Workin’ on the Chain Gang is a powerful examination of the American economic and political machine. No matter what your race, gender, politics, or beliefs, this is a book that will profoundly alter the way you think—and the way you act.

What Next (2003)

Walter Mosley’s What Next dares to propose that African Americans can have a voice and play a leading capitalism, which profits from creating wars, hunger, and death around the world. It condemns our government’s corrupt political leadership and its subservience to corporations as opposed to the democratic will of the people. And perhaps most provocative of all, it encourages everyday people to take action to bring about world peace. Shocked by the events of 9/11 (witnessed from his New York apartment), bestselling author Mosley like many other Americans, questions why our enemies hate us so. Mosley’s answer did not come from the endless news coverage but from conversations he had as a child and as an adult with his father. These conversations provided a background and a filter for Mosley to explore what it means for African Americans to be Americans, to be attacked by America’s enemies, and to stand for world peace. Leroy Mosley, the author’s father, was a hard-working provider, a deep thinker, and a contemporary urban philosopher. Drafted into the army during the Second World War, he quickly discovered German troops shot at him just as readily as they did other Americans. This experience convinced Leroy that he was indeed a full-fledged citizen of the United States. Watching the trail of smoke rise from the damaged twin towers, the younger Mosley was reminded of his father’s journey to his own self-styled emancipation.

Life Out of Context (2005)

Life Out of Context begins as a powerful, brooding, and humorously honest examination of Mosley’s own sense of cultural dislocation as an African American writer. But due to a series of serendipitous events — the screening of a documentary about Africa, an encounter with Harry Belafonte and Hugh Masekela — Mosley, rather like the protagonist in one of his mystery novels, has a series of epiphanies on the role of a black intellectual in America. He asks: What can we do to fight injustice, poverty, exploitation, and racism? What is globalization doing to us? Through these late night meditations, Mosley attempts to transcend his earlier feelings of living a “life out of context” and seeks instead to find a political context. He ends with a call to arms, proposing that African Americans have to break their historic ties with the Democrat Party and form a party of their own

This Year You Write Your Novel (2007)

No more excuses. “Let the lawn get shaggy and the paint peel from the walls,”

Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation (2011)

In his late teens and early twenties, Walter Mosley was addicted to alcohol and cigarettes. Drawing from this intimate knowledge of addiction and recovery, Mosley explores the deviances of contemporary America and describes a society in thrall to its own consumption. Although Americans live in the richest country on earth, many citizens exist on the brink of poverty, and from that profound economic inequality stems self-destructive behavior. In Twelve Steps to Political Revelation, Mosley outlines a guide to recovery from oppression. First, we must identify the problems that surround us. Next, we must actively work together to create a just, more holistic society. And finally, power must be returned to the embrace of the people. Challenging and original, Recovery confronts both self-understanding and how we define ourselves in relation to others.

Folding the Red Into the Black (2016)

Years ago, when Mosley was working on a doctorate in political theory, he envisioned writing very different kinds of books from those for which he has become celebrated. But once you’ve been tagged as a novelist, and in Mosley’s case, a genre writer, even a bestselling one, it is hard to get an airing for ideas that cross those boundaries. Folding the Red into the Black has grown out of Mosley’s public talks, which have gotten both enthusiastic and agitated responses, making him feel the ideas in those talks should be explored in greater depth. Mosley’s is an elastic mind, and in this short polemic, he frees himself to explore some novel ideas. He draws on personal experiences and insights as an African-American, a Jew, and one of our great writers to present an alternative manifesto of sorts: “We need to throw off the unbearable weight of bureaucratic capitalist and socialist demands; demands that exist to perpetuate these systems, not to praise and raise humanity to its full promise. And so I propose the word, the term Untopia.”

The Elements of Fiction Writing (2019)

In his essential writing guide, This Year You Write Your Novel, Walter Mosley supplied aspiring writers with the basic tools to write a novel in one year. In this complementary follow-up, Mosley guides the writer through the elements of not just any fiction writing, but the kind of writing that transcends convention and truly stands out. How does one approach the genius of writers like Melville, Dickens, or Twain? In The Elements of Fiction Writing, Walter Mosley contemplates the answer. In a series of instructive and conversational chapters, Mosley demonstrates how to master fiction’s most essential elements: character and character development, plot and story, voice and narrative, context and description, and more. The result is a vivid depiction of the writing process, from the blank page to the first draft to rewriting, and rewriting again. Throughout, The Elements of Fiction Writing is enriched by brilliant demonstrative examples that Mosley himself has written here for the first time. Inspiring, accessible, and told in a voice both trustworthy and wise, The Elements of Fiction Writing will intrigue and encourage writers and readers alike.

The Fall of Heaven (2011)

Tempest Landry, a street-wise young man living in Harlem, unexpectedly finds himself at the Pearly Gates. When Saint Peter orders him to hell, the quick-witted Tempest refuses to go. A technical loophole forces heaven to send Tempest back to Earth